Global InformationHistory of the Houston Rockets information
The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston, Texas. The team plays in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team was established in 1967, and played in San Diego, California for four years, before moving to Houston, Texas.[1]
In the Rockets' debut season, they won 15 games. After drafting Elvin Hayes first overall in the 1968 NBA draft, they made their first appearance in the playoffs in 1969. After Hayes was traded, Moses Malone replaced him. Malone won two Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards during his time in Houston, and he led the Rockets to the 1978 conference finals in his first year with the Rockets. He also took the Rockets to the NBA Finals in 1981, but they were defeated in six games by the Boston Celtics.[2]
Two years after advancing to the finals, the Rockets traded Malone and had two losing seasons, with the first having a franchise-low 14 victories. This gave Houston two straight first overall picks, used to bring future Hall of Famers Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon, who eventually got the Rockets all the way to the 1986 Finals, where they lost again to Boston. In the next seven seasons, they lost in the first round of the playoffs five times. They did not win their first championship until 1994, when Olajuwon led them to a franchise-best 58 wins, and the championship. The Rockets repeated the feat in 1995, but have not appeared again in the NBA Finals since. They missed the playoffs from 1999 to 2003, and did not reach the playoffs again until they drafted Yao Ming in 2003. However, they would not advance past the first round of the playoffs for 13 years. In the 2007–08 NBA season, the Rockets had their most successful campaign in the 2000s, winning 55 games, with 22 of those victories in a row,[3] but still lost in the first round.[2] The following season, the team managed to win a playoff series for the first time since 1997, defeating the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round of the 2009 NBA Playoffs and pushed the eventual champion Los Angeles Lakers to seven games in the 2009 Western Conference Semifinals.
During the next decade, the Rockets rehauled their roster and were again contenders for the NBA title. In the 2014–15 NBA season, led by head coach Kevin McHale and guard James Harden, the Rockets won their first division title in 21 years, and reached the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 1997.
- ^ a b "Owners, fans waited years before Rockets took off". Houston Chronicle. September 20, 2001. Retrieved 2008-05-13.
- ^ a b "Houston Rockets". basketball-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
- ^ Pierce, Damien (March 18, 2008). "Celtics end Rockets' 22-game winning streak". NBA.com. Retrieved 2009-03-07.